Shimano bushing replacement

[Pipepro]

After reading some of the posts on here from the resident reel junkie I decided to give it a whirl myself.

I saw his post on upgrading the Shimano SLX and decided to swap out the bushings in the handle knobs for bearings. I was surprised to find out the Curado 150 DC has the same bushings as the SLX.

So after receiving 3 sets of bearings I decided to give it a go. The first baitcaster I ever had I took apart and lost some pieces in the shag carpet of my parents living room. A Garcia Ambassador Ultra Mag XL II and it was never the same again.

It was pretty simple to do. The biggest thing is to clean all the grease out of the knobs. Some pipe cleaners came in handy for the job. A set of tweezers helped me with the small screws and for popping the bushings out. The new bearings slip right in and presto! Silky smooth and they feel good now. One curious thing, the SLX XT had chrome caps on the knobs while the Curado DC and the SLX had black. I swapped em around. Seems like the black goes better with the SLX colors.

Thanks for the bearings and the motivation Matt!

[Pipepro]

Well, thats strange. The pics are rotated 90. Ill see if I can change that.

Welp, changing the size to small didn't help.

And deleting them and then rotating them in my gallery and then re uploading them didn't work either.

And deleting them and then adding them as attachments fixed 2 of the 5. Hmm

Well, crummy workaround but changing the aspect ratio to square in my gallery let them post correctly. Go figure. Didn't have any trouble with the pics I took this fall.

[Smallie_Stalker]

First, thanks for the info. and pictures. I'm gonna be doing the same to my 2 Daiwas in a few weeks. I already had a note in my calendar to PM Matt for info and some help.

As for the picture issue of you are using Tapatalk to post from your phone there is an ongoing issue with a bug in their latest update. Lou has made a couple of threads to help us keep track.

If you're posting from a PC you can still have issues because most phones seem to  rotate the pictures for some reason. I did some research a while back and it has to do with what is called the EXIF data the phone uses to process the pic. I have a program on my PC that let's you fix it and sometimes even that doesn't work.


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[LgMouthGambler]

Glad the bearings worked out for ya. Now go enjoy those reels!

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[Mike Cork]

Great quick tutorial thank you for taking the time to put this together for us.

[Mattiaz]

Thanks for the info!
What size is the bearings for the SLX XT?

My XT is on its way and maybe I will change for bearings as well...
Do you think it was worth it?

Mattiaz

[LgMouthGambler]

Thanks for the info!
What size is the bearings for the SLX XT?

My XT is on its way and maybe I will change for bearings as well...
Do you think it was worth it?

Mattiaz

I like the feeling better. 4x7x2.5

[TWBryan]

Where do you get your bearings from?

[Pipepro]

Where do you get your bearings from?

A member here was nice enough to sell me some. He does a lot of work on fishing reels, customizing them and making them perform better than new.

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[Pipepro]

I liked the feel of replacing the bushings in my Shimano reels so much that I decided to do my HD 200 and the wife's Tatulas. Interesting to find that they have one bearing per knob already installed. I don't know how much the additional bearing will change things, it felt about the same to me. I doubt spinning the knobs in my living room is a scientific test.

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[LgMouthGambler]

Where do you get your bearings from?

Me.

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[TWBryan]

 LgMouthGambler, If I decide on upgrading my Daiwas I will be in touch.